Digital camera owner satisfaction study

A recent consumer study by J.D. Power and Associates brings us some interesting consumer satisfaction results and an insight into the latest market trends.

Camera model lines were grouped into four body style segments: point and shoot, premium point and shoot,ultra slim and digital single lens reflex (DSLR). The ranking is based on picture quality, performance, operation, and appearance and styling. The study is based on responses from more than 7,500 consumers.

The Fujifilm Finepix F ranks highest in the point and shoot segment, closely followed by Kodak Z series and Canon PowerShot A series cameras.

In the premium point and shoot segment the Canon SD/Ixus series reigns supreme, with Panasonic DMZ-FZ and Kodak Z series lagging behind by a significant margin.

Casio's Exilim Zoom series ranks top in the ultraslim segment, followed by Canon's SD/Ixus series and Kodak's V series.

Nikon's D series is ranked top in the DSLR segment, Sony's Alpha series is second and Canon's Digital EOS comes in third.

Brand loyalty positively affects consumer satisfaction and 48 per cent of consumers sticking to the same brand in the non SLR classes. Even more DSLR users stay with the same brand, 67 percent. This is no surprise since changing the brand often means you also have to change your very expensive lenses. In fact, I would have expected this number to be even higher.

DSLR users take as much as 400 pictures per month, while non-DSLR users average around 140.

"The DSLR segment is particularly intriguing, as single lens reflex camera owners have typically tended to be professional photographers and sophisticated amateurs," said Steve Kirkeby, executive director of telecommunications and technology at J.D. Power and Associates "Now that technology has simplified use of DSLRs, they are becoming more popular among mainstream photo enthusiasts."

No surprise that Sony and Canon are investing more than a billion bucks in expanding their CMOS sensor production capacities. In fact, by this time next year, they will double their output. We can probably expect much more competition in the already heavily contested DSLR segment, and maybe even CMOS based high end compacts. In the end, consumers only stand to benefit from this struggle.